Scandalicious: Top 10 Chinese Food Scares

What’s on your plate (or in your bowl) tonight? Food scandals in the world’s most populous country have been in and out of the media over the last few years faster than, well, a dodgy kebab passing through a drunkard. We’ve reported a few, like toxic oil and recycled chopsticks (here) and melamine-tainted baby milk (here).

And now, helpfully, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper has pulled a bunch of them together in a Top 10 list. The milk scandal takes top spot, with ‘sewer oil’ further down the list, just under ‘toxic take-away boxes’. There are several from this year, including ‘Cadmium rice’. Fortified with heavy metal. Rock on.

The article states that “research published in February claimed that up to 10 per cent of rice sold in China was contaminated with heavy metals, including cadmium.” Apparently it makes great risotto, though.

The list had some notable omissions, not least our very own Beijing baozi scandal in 2007 involving steamed buns, recycled cardboard and caustic soda. Personally, I’m more of an egg and jiu cai fan. The probable reason this scandal didn’t make the cut is because the authorities ‘proved’ that the local reporter who broke the cardboard baozi story made it all up. Though some folks still believe the scandal wasn't a hoax. You can see the original news report here. You can’t blame them, really. (The sceptics, not the bun makers).

Despite the scaremongering, let me close Jerry Springer style by saying hell, food here is mostly darn good. Use your head, pick your restaurants sensibly and we’ll all surely end up much healthier than our western-based cousins, slowly unfolding into obese, pallid pancakes amidst a sea of microwave meals and additive-addled convenience foods. If the pollution doesn’t get us first, of course.